Documentary Film Selection 2026
These are the 15 documentary films vying for the 38th European Film Awards (17 January 2026).
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AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE
TARDES DE SOLEDAD
Spain, France
Documentary
AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE is a documentary about bullfighting based on the portrait of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey and his cuadrilla.
Written & directed by: Albert Serra
Produced by: Albert Serra, Montse Triola, Pedro Palacios, Luís Ferrón, Ricard ... -
AN AMERICAN PASTORAL
UNE PASTORALE AMERICAINE
France
Documentary
Nestled in a valley among Lancaster County’s rolling farmland, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania has all the charm of small-town America. Yet behind this bucolic veneer lies a fracture in the making.
After months of bitter debate over Covid-19 pandemic res... -
ANCESTRAL VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
France, Lesotho, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
Documentary
ANCESTRAL VISIONS OF THE FUTURE is a deeply personal work by filmmaker Lemohang Mosese. With fragmented narratives and mythical images, he crafts a haunting reflection on dislocation and belonging. Enter: the puppeteer, a man who tends h...
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FIUME O MORTE!
Croatia, Slovenia, Italy
Documentary
On 12 September 1919, a troop of some three hundred soldiers under the leadership of the flamboyant war loving Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio swooped into the Northern-Adriatic port town of Fiume, now Rijeka, wanting to annex the city to Italy. Over the co...
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FLOPHOUSE AMERICA
Norway, Netherlands, United States
Documentary
Due to the ongoing housing crisis in the U.S., many people are forced to live in run-down hotels, known as flophouses. Twelve-year-old Mikal shares a small, inexpensive room in one of these hotels with his parents and their cat, Smokey. Their home ...
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GOOD VALLEY STORIES
HISTORIAS DEL BUEN VALLE
Spain, France
Documentary
On the outskirts of Barcelona, Vallbona is an enclave bordered by a river, railway tracks, and a highway. Antonio, the son of Catalan workers, has been growing flowers here for nearly 90 years. He’s been joined by Makome, Norma, Tatiana, comi...
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HAIR, PAPER, WATER...
TÓC, GIẤY VÀ NƯỚC...
Belgium, France, Vietnam
Documentary
Cao Thị Hậu was born in a cave more than 60 years ago. Now she lives in a village, with many children and grandchildren to look after. Sometimes, she dreams of her dead mother calling her home – to the cave. The film captures fleeting m...
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LISTEN TO THE VOICES
KOUTÉ VWA
Belgium, France
Documentary
Melrick, a 13-year-old boy, spends his summer vacation in Cayenne with his grandmother Nicole. His desire to learn to play the drum brings back the spectre of Lucas, Nicole's son, also a drummer, who died in tragic conditions 11 years earlier.
Directed b...
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MEMORY
France, Netherlands
Documentary
After her parents’ divorce, six-year-old Vladlena moves from Crimea to Grozny, not yet aware of the changes that lie ahead. When war breaks out in Chechnya, it deeply affects her city and family. Years later, filmmaker Sandu reflects on her childhood in this poet...
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MILITANTROPOS
Ukraine, Austria, France
Documentary
MILITANTROPOS captures the human condition through the fractured realities of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The film pieces together everyday lives transformed by war – those who flee, those who lose everything, and those who stay to resist and fight – tr...
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RIEFENSTAHL
Germany
Documentary
Leni Riefenstahl is considered one of the most controversial women of the 20th century. Her iconographic imagery of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and OLYMPIA stands for perfectly staged body worship, for the celebration of the superior and victorious. The aesthetics of their images se...
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SONGS OF SLOW BURNING EARTH
ПІСНІ ЗЕМЛІ, ЩО ПОВІЛЬНО ГОРИТЬ
Ukraine, France, Denmark, Sweden
Documentary
An audiovisual diary of Ukraine’s immersion into the abyss of the first two years of Russia's full-scale invasion, made up of places, occasional characters, rare dialogues, intraframe sounds and silences which, when p...
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THE SHARDS
ОСКОЛКИ
Georgia, Germany
Documentary
In spring 2022, Masha prepares to leave Russia – her home country that has changed. It turns into chain of unexpected farewells: her mom dies of cancer, her lover flees army conscription, everything including her own old self is falling apart. Her way to co...
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TWST / THINGS WE SAID TODAY
France, Romania
Documentary
TWST takes as its starting point the arrival of the Beatles in New York for their August 1965 concert at Shea Stadium, and as its title a Beatles song that already anticipates a time when the present moment will have become a haunting past, neither retrievable nor fo...
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WITH HASAN IN GAZA
Germany
Documentary
Three mini DV tapes of life in Gaza from 2001 were recently rediscovered. This footage is now a testament to a place and time that no longer exists. What started as a search for a former prison inmate from 1989 – a man lost to time and war – led to an unexpected road trip f...